Everybody profits from Chelsea's great loan rate

Forget the £211million Chelsea have spent on transfer fees over the past 13 months, the amount of money they have written off is even more astonishing. Adrian Mutu could today become the fifth high-profile Chelsea player to join a rival club on loan for the coming season, three of whom arrived at Stamford Bridge last summer for a total of £49.6m. Chelsea are not the only club to benefit from Roman Abramovich's desire to part with his cash.

Few billionaires get where they are by wasting money, but Abramovich's largesse is extraordinary and he continues to pay almost half of Hernan Crespo's £94,000-a-week wages while he plays for AC Milan. In addition to allowing world-class stars Mutu, Crespo and Juan Veron to play elsewhere for nothing, Chelsea gave Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Marcel Desailly pay-offs beyond their wildest dreams. No wonder they left quietly.

With a year left on their contracts both players were given almost 80 per cent of next season's wages to leave, £2.8m for Hasselbaink and £1.8m for his former captain. Even Winston Bogarde worked harder for his money.

While such generous severance pay clearly reflects both Chelsea's gratitude to their faithful servants and desire to remove ageing players from the squad, their attitude to the loan system is more intriguing.

Such a systematic loaning of top players to their immediate European rivals is unprecedented, proving again that Chelsea are a special case, though it is a product of failure rather than success. Even children are smart enough to hold on to their best toys.

Allowing almost £50m of talent to leave is an admission of failure. Having made mistakes last summer, buying too many players unsuited to the physical demands of English football, Chelsea decided to trim their squad to a more manageable number but were unable to find any buyers. Such huge natural wastage seems an unsustainable way to run any business, particularly for a club aiming to be self-financing within the next five years. Even if all three players excel, their market values will still decline, but the club had little option.

A Chelsea source said: "We couldn't get transfer fees for these players so were left with the choice of having very expensive squad players or loaning them out.

"The objective was to get them off the premises because we wanted a squad of a certain size to avoid the problems of last year.

"Loan deals were the only option. We thought we bought the right players last summer but some of them did not pan out in the way we wanted. We bought so many players that the failures are more obvious. We have the luxury of being able to get rid of them."

Chelsea can also afford to pay a portion of their out-sourced players' wages and the club accept that some compromises are inevitable.

Our source said: "When you pay money that no one else is paying you can't expect to loan them out without wages being an issue. Carlton Cole does not have the same value as Crespo. The aim is to turn some of these loans into sales. We were not happy that Crespo was the only player to miss a penalty against Manchester United in New York last week."

While Juventus, AC Milan and Internazionale are the most obvious beneficiaries of Chelsea's profligacy, several Premiership clubs have also taken advantage of their enlarged squad.

Mikael Forssell scored 19 goals on loan for Birmingham last year, more than any other Chelsea striker, and hopes a repeat performance this season will secure him a permanent return to Stamford Bridge.

Alan Switzer, consultant for the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, believes the loan market has benefits for all concerned. He said: "There are inherent risks in loaning top players out to a rival - look at Real Madrid with Fernando Morientes last season - which is why such deals are quite rare, but it's a judgement call. Mutu could come back to Chelsea with a greater value.

"It's all about increasing flexibility. Bolton have established a pattern of bringing in highly paid players for one or two years and, if they suffer a downturn, releasing them. This has a limit but I don't see it declining as there are good financial reasons for both clubs."

Jon Smith, chief executive of the First Artist Corporation that includes Forssell on their client list, also sees reasons to be positive.

He said: "The loan market has developed primarily because of the disparity between the haves and the have-nots. The top clubs can spend £5million, £10million or £25million on a player but the have-nots can't, even in the Premier League.

"It can work very positively as we've seen with Mikael, who's a great striker wanting to play but won't get a sniff at Chelsea. It's better to be playing in the Premier League so he can earn the Chelsea No10 shirt next season."

Given the calibre of players shown the door this summer, he is unlikely to ever get that opportunity.